


Return

by MeGrimlockKing



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Mentions of Death, One-Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:06:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28178100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeGrimlockKing/pseuds/MeGrimlockKing
Summary: Fjord feels as though things are finally going right for him, even if the world is turning upsidedown. But closing previous chapters in one's life is not always simple.
Relationships: Fjord/Jester Lavorre
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	Return

Back on the sea, the sway of the ship, the creaking of the rigging, the sun on his face, the salt on the air, and the spray of the water. Fjord couldn’t feel more at home, the cold and gray world of Eiselcross was far behind them. He couldn’t help the broad and, rather stupid, grin the spread across his face as he gazed out across the endless expanse of water. He couldn’t imagine a more perfect moment, well, that wasn’t true he thought to himself with a smirk. But he was pulled from this reverie as a pair of hands covered his eyes and a soft and familiar voice trilled gently in his ear.

“Guess who?” she said in a sing-song voice, and he could hear the smile on her face.

“Oh, I wonder who it could be?” he said back playfully and he heard her giggle, her hot breath on his ear sending shivers down his spine.

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll never guess,” she said back, and it was abundantly clear she was trying to keep her expansive mirth in check.

“Is it Beau?” he teased.

“Noooo,” she cooed, before letting another giggle escape her lips.

“Yasha maybe?” he questioned in overtly obvious feigned confusion.

“Noooo,” she said, her voice ringing like a bell.

“It must be Caduceus,” Fjord said in a passable tone of epiphany.

“CADUCEUS!” she squeaked in mock outrage.

Fjord couldn’t suppress the chuckle that rumbled in his throat as he reached up and gently wrapped his hands around Jesters. He closed his eyes as he felt her squeeze his hands back as he gently tugged them away from his face. He turned around his goofy grin back on his face.

“Well, then it must be Jes-” his voice failed him as he opened his eyes. Jester was gone and so was the sun.

Fjord felt his blood run ice cold and he manically looked around, his breathing becoming labored and frantic. The sky was black, and the waves had stilled. The silence around him was oppressive, overwhelming, the only sound he could make out was the frantic thrumming of his own heart.

“Jester…” he whispered into the silence, his voice was terrified, hoarse and her name seemed to tremble from his lips when he spoke, only for the sound to be consumed by the obsidian dark and silence. He clutched desperately for his symbol of The Wildemother but what his hand seemed to find wasn’t the symbol of his savior, but a large, cold sphere.

It felt as though his heart had stopped. He didn’t want to look, he couldn’t, but his eyes seemed to be drawn down against his will. When he saw the slit pupil of the cloven crystal starring back up at him he dropped it as though it had burned him. It rolled across the deck of the ship before stopping as though it had suddenly found itself adhered to the planks. It swiftly spun around, it’s pupil staring up at Fjord from the now soaked deck.

“Wha-” Fjord began to stammer as he cast his eyes around the ship again. What had once been a proud vessel looked as though it had been stoved in by some great leviathan. The deck was practically submerged, the ocean’s surface washing over the ruined and warped planks. The masts were shattered and cracked, the sails and rigging torn and tangled. He looked back to where the crystal had fallen to see that it was gone.

“Not real...it’s not real,” he muttered to himself, trying to convince himself, unable to tell if the moisture that caused his clothes to cling to his body was from sweat or the oceanic spray that has started to pick up again. “Not real, not real,” he muttered again to himself frantically, desperately, as he squeezed his eyes shut and gripped his head, his nails digging into his scalp. But closing his eyes did him no good, he could still see the terrible wreck and hungry sea around him. That’s when he heard her

“Fjord?” her voice was soft and questioning, and strangely devoid of fear, she sounded merely curious.

Fjord’s eyes shot open and spun around to see her standing there, bathed in the white light of a moon that hadn’t been there moments before. She looked at him, appearing for all the world as some divine figure, her hair and horns wreathed in light. She looked at him inquisitively, seemingly unaffected by the terror he was feeling.

“Jester,” he croaked, sweat and tears mingling together on his face as he stepped towards her. But no matter how many steps he took, he never managed to get ant closer to her, and the harder he tried the weaker, slower, and heavier his muscled seemed to become.

“We’ll be okay Fjord, we always are,” she said in a whisper that seemed to echo in his mind as she reached out and offered her hand to him, her smile kind and reassuring. Then the white light around her seemed to turn to a sickly amber yellow.

Although he was consumed in terror Fjord forced himself to look up at the moon, which had turned an unnatural shade of yellow before it appeared to start turn as a slitted pupil rolled into view, dilated as it focused and stared at him, it’s gaze like a harpoon piercing his heart.

“RETURN” a familiar and terrible voice shot through Fjord’s mind.

“PROTECT” it rumbled as sinewy coils seemed to rise from the water on the deck and surrounded Jester, gently, almost as if they were guards or sentinels, she seemed to not notice.

“DEFEND” the coils drew closer, seemed to tighten.

“Please…” Fjord whimpered, his eyes shooting from the eye to Jester.

“PUNISH” the coils closed further and Jester finally seemed to notice as her eyes turned to pure panic and she frantically looked around.

“PLEASE DON’T” Fjord screamed.

“LOST” and the coils tightened and closed around her, binding her as she let out a scream of terror and pain. Her eyes meet Fjords, bright, full of tears and fear so pure it made Fjord physically ill.

“Fjord?” she whispered, her voice sounding distant and near as her terror cut through him.

“GONE” the voice of Uk’otoa seemed to chuckle and everything seemed to freeze.

The world was silent, then a slow creaking began to fill the air. Then, in an instant, a cacophony of shattering timbers, rushing water, and screams filled the air as the serpentine coils ripped Jester through the ruined deck of the ship, down into the black depths. Her grabbled screams and the horrid gagging of her drowning filtered directly into Fjord’s mind as his paralysis seemed to lift.

Without thinking, with hesitation, he leaped into the water, swimming faster than he had ever swum before. Deeper and deeper, the darkness somehow seeming to become even more absolute, more oppressive, then he saw her, floating there, lifeless. But he grabbed her and began to make his way towards the surface. It hadn’t been that long, she’d be fine, he told himself over and over again. This mantra driving him to push himself harder than he’d thought possible. Then it happened, he broke the surface and pulled Jester up onto the bettered ship.

Desperately he began to compress her chest, trying to force her heart to beat. Putting his mouth over her and forcing air into her lungs before returning to his frantic attempts to make her breathe. Each compression forcing the wet air from her lungs he just breathed into her with a sickeningly weak and wet wheeze. Yet he tried, again and again, five minutes, fifteen minutes, half an hour, an hour. The only sound was his panicked breath and lifeless wheeze forced from dead lungs. As he tried once more to make her breathe he looked into her eyes, something he’d been forcing himself not to do as he knew what he would see.

Half-lidded eyes, particle rolled upwards and devoid the glimmer and light that had always been there. She was gone and had been for some time, and it was too much. Fjord fell back, sitting hard on the deck, not caring about the shock of pain that shot up his spine as he let out a muffled cry of grief and slammed his fist into the deck before burying his head in his hands and silently weeping.

He sat there for what felt like an eternity before he felt a presence around him. He didn’t look up, he couldn’t. A comforting pressure seemed to envelop him, to wrap around him, to hold him close. It was how he had always imagined a mother’s embrace would feel. The voice then whispered in his ear.

“RETURN” and he was violently crushed.

________________________________________________________________

Fjord awoke drenched in a cold sweat, his sheets tangled around him as he looked wild-eyed around his room. Frantically untangling himself from his bedding he shot up from his hammock like a bolt and ran from his room. Stumbling as he ran, he made his way through the tower and made his way to Jester’s room. Stopping at her door, he stopped and tried to compose himself. His hand shaking he slowly opened the door and looked inside, he saw her sleeping, gently breathing, and letting out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

It took everything he had not to walk in, wake her up, hold her. To grip her desperately to him, to make sure she was there, she was safe. But that would only scare her, it could wait until morning. They were still in Eiselcross, safe in Caleb’s tower and miles from the sea and Uk’otoa. The serpent could torment him, but he couldn’t harm Jester, not here, for now at least.

Gently closing the door he stepped back before leaning his back onto the wall next to her room before slowly sliding down and sitting on the floor. He went to bury his head in his hands and felt something hard strike against his skull. Looking down in the left hand his heart stopped.

There, in his hand, was the horribly familiar serpent eye staring blankly back up at him. When he had retrieved it? How had he not noticed he’d been holding it. He desperately grasped at his holy symbol, glad to find it there, as he stared back into the cloven crystal. The heart now pounding wildly in his ears, two words repeated over and over in his mind.

“RETURN”

“PROTECT”

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this in a frantic mindset and uploaded it in an equally frantic midset. If anyone notices anything I messed up be sure to let me know, constructive criticism is always welcome.


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